


Skrulls Just Wanna Have Fun

by coriolana



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationships, Cute Kids, Dating, F/M, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, James Rhodes/Carol Danvers - Freeform, Loki/Bacon, Science Bros, Skrull(s), Swearing, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-07
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-24 06:26:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2571473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coriolana/pseuds/coriolana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Halloween is Darcy's favorite holiday, and she's got plans to celebrate with Loki -- after they help Jane, Bruce, and Thor chaperone a trick-or-treat outing with Jane and Bruce's Science Club kids. But when the group receives word that a mysterious alien craft has entered the atmosphere, they'll have to put aside Kit-Kats for kickin' ass and work together to stop a Skrull invasion. </p><p>Of course, on a night of tricks and treats, nothing is as it seems . . . </p><p>AU: Loki reconciled with Thor and Odin instead of falling off the Bifrost. (He's still a little shit, though.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skrulls Just Wanna Have Fun

**Author's Note:**

> Back by popular demand, and because [gth694e](http://archiveofourown.org/users/gth694e/works) keeps sending me gifs.
> 
> Sequel to ["Darcy Lewis's Interstellar Dating Service"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2159871), though you don't have to read them in order.
> 
> Rated teen for swearing and very brief scene of peril involving kids.

"Loki, I do not think—"

"Thor, please. Consider the children. We must stay, as the Midgardians call it, _in_ _character._ "

Packs of costumed Midgardian youth made sugar-fueled haste up and down the sidewalks, trailed by adults in pairs and alone. Crackling leaves matched the children's pace, sent scratching across the cracked pavement on the breath of a cold autumn wind that also whipped capes against legs and tugged at pillowcases pregnant with candies. Pumpkins—of the vegetable and the plastic varieties—glowed on stoops and windowsills, their waxy flames echoed in the wind-wafted smell of hearthfires.

Thor, wearing his full Asgardian armor—which had garnered no notice, other than a few thumbs-up gestures and "Nice costume" compliments from passing adults—gave his brother a suspicious look, then sighed deeply.

"All right, then, _Captain._ I do not think we should linger on these streets."

Loki smirked to himself, then straightened his back, lifted his chin, and raised his blue-white-and-red shield before his chest. "Surely they are safe enough under the protection of the _mighty_ Avengers?"

Jane—who was already halfway up the steps of the next porch in her Black Widow catsuit, leading her band of trick-or-treaters—didn't hear Loki, but Darcy and Bruce did. Darcy responded by giving him a double thumbs-up; Bruce peered through the eye-slits of his fabric-and-foam Iron Man costume and shook his head.

"Look, I get that Thor can just walk around in his, ah, regular clothes because it's Halloween, but why—"

"Doc. Seriously. It's _Halloween_ ," Darcy said as she fell back to join them. She wore a white t-shirt with "I (heart) arrows" scribbled on it, a blond mullet wig, sunglasses, and a pair of black leather wrist cuffs. Slung over her shoulder was a quiver of purple-fletched arrows, and she'd been using the end of her bow to poke Loki's butt when she thought he wasn't looking. "You cannot go out on Halloween without a costume. It's beyond lame. Besides, this is, like, the best group costume ever. Right, Tiny Hulk?"

The seven-year-old she'd spoken to lifted his head, his green mask wobbling, but didn't reply. He'd taken Bruce's hand at the beginning of the night and hadn't let go, uninterested in walking up to the houses with the other children. Despite this, the orange plastic pumpkin dangling from his non-Bruce-holding hand rattled with candy: Princess Marie Curie, who had an allergy to peanuts, had been dropping her Reese's cups and Snickers in his bucket, while Super Neil DeGrasse Tyson had periodically dashed back to get rid of Starburst, Skittles, and Twizzlers, his cape flapping.

"I _had_ a costume—"

"You had the ratty lab coat you wear every day," Darcy shot back. " _Not_ a costume."

Bruce sighed again, foam-stiffened shoulders slumping, and lifted one arm. "Where did you get this, anyway? It smells like beer," he added, voice dropping to a mutter with his last words.

"Look. Halloween is my _thing._ I, like . . . spread the Christmas cheer, but for Halloween. So I have extra costumes," Darcy said, and shrugged. "Also, I think I found that one in a dumpster at NYU in March. Waste not, want not." She bounced on her feet, her voice rising. "Besides, I have been wanting to do an Avengers group costume for _forever._ "

"Yeah, Darcy, we _know_ ," Jane said, preceded by a flood of giggling seven-to-twelve-year-olds racing toward the next house. "Hey! Walk, don't run!" she yelled ineffectually over their heads, then added, "Darce, would you—"

Darcy gave her a fake salute. "On it, Natasha," she said, and trotted after the kids. "Hey! Leave some candy for me, guys!"

"She is going to be worse than the kids for the next couple days," Jane said and threaded her arm through Thor's. Thor's face softened and warmed in Jane's presence, and he placed a tentative hand on hers where it rested on his arm. She looked up and smiled at the gesture, and his own smile deepened with a kind of delighted surprise.

"So what were you two arguing about?" she asked, raising a penciled-in brow. She'd given Darcy free range to employ her makeup skills, and now her bright brown eyes glowed amidst smoldering shadow. The change fascinated Thor; it was as if Jane's usual beauty had been intensified, concentrated.

"I received warning from the lady Maria two days ago that SHIELD had detected an object from space entering Midgard's atmosphere," Thor said, returning with obvious reluctance to matters of safety.

Jane nodded, the tail of her French braid bobbing. "Yeah, I heard about that, too. I thought they determined that it was just an unusually large meteoroid?"

"That was what they believed," Thor agreed, "until they sought to find its landing-place, and it was gone."

"Gone, like, it vaporized in the atmosphere? Or gone, like—"

"They found the end of its path. But where they should have found signs of a violent impact, they instead found signs of _landing._ "

Jane looked from Thor, to Loki, to Bruce. "But—you can't mean—" She looked back at Thor doubtfully. "Were you expecting . . . friends?"

Thor shook his head solemnly, worry creasing his brow.

"So, SHIELD thinks . . . aliens? Really?"

"They've come before," Loki muttered, and shuddered at the memory of the space spiders. [Ed: see [Darcy Lewis's Interstellar Dating Service](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2159871) for the creepy details.] Jane blinked and turned her gaze ahead, though she wasn't watching where she was walking; Thor steered her gently around the slippery carcass of a smashed pumpkin as they walked and she thought.

"Where was the landing?"

"Far to the north, in an area largely uninhabited by people. That is why they did not know until today that this was no mere astronomical event."

"No roads up there," Bruce said thoughtfully. "The satellite coverage is pretty spotty, and some places are so far out from airfields with refueling facilities that you can't really do much unless you've got a whole fleet of planes looking."

Jane gave him a look of surprise and worry. Bruce shrugged wearily.

"A friend mentioned it. In case I ever needed some . . . quiet time."

"We shall endeavor to provide quiet whenever you require it, friend Banner," Thor said gently, and patted Bruce's shoulder as lightly as he could. Under the foam mask, Loki thought he saw Bruce give a lopsided smile.

"Candy!" Darcy bellowed ahead of them, which led to a unified, childish chorus of chants: "Can-dy! Can-dy! Can-dy!"

"You were speaking of quiet?" Loki drawled. Paradoxically, Bruce's mostly-hidden smile grew larger. He looked down at Tiny Hulk.

"Let's catch up with them, huh?" he said, then turned to the other three. "I think Darcy could use some adult supervision."

"No kidding," Jane muttered.

With no objections raised, his smile still wide and warm on his face, hand still firmly in the grasp of Tiny Hulk, Bruce began walking faster. Jane watched him go, a smile of her own growing.

"He is very good with children, our friend Banner," Thor observed, his voice a low rumble in his chest that had Jane leaning into his side.

"He is," she agreed. "He's put out more literal and figurative fires at Science Club than I can count. And the kids love him."

As the three of them watched, Princess Marie Curie claimed Bruce's free hand for a half-dozen steps before darting forward to join the crush of kids at the next house. He kept a watchful eye as they walked, calling out kids by name when passing groups of trick-or-treaters tempted the Science Clubbers off the narrow sidewalks and into the gutter or street.

He had a knack for knowing when kids were playing with danger or having trouble, both in Science Club and out. He was the quickest to notice when someone's lab journal was getting perilously close to a Bunsen burner, or when an ambitious engineering project threatened to collapse on its designer's head; and it wasn't a Science Club meeting without at least one sighting of Bruce and a kid in a corner, talking together or simply sitting quietly while the child rubbed at tear-filled eyes. Once in a while, Jane would catch Bruce after Science Club with his jaw set, fingers pinching his nose as he called Pepper, his conversation filled with words like "hungry" or "isn't working right now" or "bruises," and a kind of air-stealing tension would follow him around for a few minutes after the call, until he could bring himself back under control.

But he was never angry around the kids, ever; or he would have been the first one to insist he left.

"Well, now that we've agreed on how lovely dear Banner is when he's not a gigantic, destructive green beast, perhaps we could agree on a place to eat following this ritualized blackmail for sweets," Loki said, casually tossing his plastic shield into the air and catching it as he walked. "There is a charming establishment a few blocks from Jane and Darcy's apartment which serves breakfast meats at all hours—"

"You want to go to Denny's _again?_ " Jane said, amused, at the same time as Thor growled "There will be no breakfast meats until I am certain this meteoroid poses no threat to Midgard."

Loki caught the shield and rolled his eyes. "Thor, sometimes a rock is just a rock. Besides, you said the landing-place was well north of here. Surely, if this _was_ an alien craft, and if they _did_ have malicious intentions toward humanity, they wouldn't come all the way to New York City to pick a fight—"

" _Yooooooooooo!_ " someone shouted as she flew overhead. "Clear the streets, folks! Skrulls ahoy! Grab your candy and get indoors, _now!_ "

Thor, Loki, and Jane looked up, Loki instinctively raising the useless plastic shield while Thor pulled Jane to his side and behind him. A streak of light creased the sky: a blurred human form, surrounded by a nimbus of light, which reached the end of the street, then turned back. In a blink, it landed before the trio and resolved into a tall, blonde-haired woman in a red-and-blue flight suit who propped her fists on her hips.

"Alright," she said, and pointed at Thor. "I'm pretty sure that's not a costume, but just to check: you're Thor, right?" She glanced at Loki, then Jane. "You look familiar, but you are _definitely_ not Natasha Romanoff. The Slavic Spider doesn't do French braids."

"Yeah, well, my superpower isn't keeping my hair out of my face while I'm trying to do stuff," Jane snapped. The flying woman raised her hands defensively.

"Hey, whoa, neither is mine. I rock the Mohawk for serious in-flight ass-kicking."

"Peace! Declare yourself, woman," Thor demanded, hammer in hand. "Who are you, and what business do you have here?"

The woman grinned. "Name's Carol Danvers," she said. "And I'm here to kick some Skrull ass. You need a reference, call Jim Rhodes."

"Rhodey?" Jane said, startled, and wriggled out from under Thor's arm. "Wait . . . you're not . . . _Cheeseburger_?"

The woman let her head drop back. "Oh, _Jesus,_ is he still calling me that? That asshole." When she lifted her head again, though, she was grinning. "I'm gonna punch him into the troposphere the next time I see him. Yeah, I'm Cheeseburger."

Jane held out her hand. "Jane. Jane Foster. It's an honor—"

"Whoa, wait, Jane-Foster-who-discovered- _the-Einstein-Rosenberg-bridge_ Jane Foster?" Carol interrupted, taking Jane's hand. "Sister, the honor's all mine."

Jane blushed and started stammering. Thor and Loki glanced at each other. The movement caught Jane's eye.

"Oh! Oh, um, I'm so sorry, this is—this is Thor Odinson, of Asgard, and, um, Loki of Asgard."

"Nicetameetcha," Carol said, shaking Thor's hand. "Heard about you from Coulson." She turned to Loki and raised an eyebrow before offering her hand. "Kinda figured you weren't Cap when I saw the shield. Pleasure."

"The pleasure's all mine," Loki said, bending to kiss her hand. He straightened, and caught a skeptical look in Carol's eyes before she took her hand back. "You mentioned skrulls?"

"I did," Carol agreed, and her face turned solemn. She looked to Thor. "If you've got the other Avengers on speed-dial, now's the time to call them in. We've got a minor Skrull problem that's gonna get serious if we don't handle it _right_ now."

"Tony Stark is not far, and he will know of the location of the others," Thor said, then looked to Jane. "Jane, if you would contact Tony—"

Jane wasn't listening. Eyes wide, she had taken two steps past Carol and was now frantically scanning the dark.

"Thor, I don't see Darcy and Bruce," she said, and Loki's heart skipped a beat. Jane turned back, her hands curled into impotent fists. "Guys? Where did they go? _Where are the kids?_ "

 

_A few minutes earlier . . ._

 

Bruce:

Zain held Bruce's hand as they caught up with Darcy and the rest of the kids. Zain didn't talk, but he was infinitely perceptive; Bruce was pretty sure the Hulk costume wasn't an accident, even though he wasn't out to the kids or their parents. It was a deception that he'd agonized over for months; still agonized over, to be honest—it wasn't remotely fair to put the kids in unknowing danger by being in close proximity to him, but if he told the parents, there was no chance they'd let their kids keep coming to Science Club. The parents that gave a damn about their kids, anyway.

Bruce swallowed back his anger. Long practice made it easy. Zain swung his hand, and Bruce looked down.

"You've got a good stash of candy going there, Zain. You gonna share it with your sister when you get home?"

Zain's sister, Zainab, was two years too old for science club—and much more interested in writing plays, besides. She worked part-time at a library after school and brought home books on science for her little brother. She picked him up from club meetings, sometimes, and was often happy to chat for a few minutes about her life. Bruce felt like a thief, warming himself with the details of another family's love for each other, but he couldn't help himself.

Zain pointed to the group with the hand that held his candy bucket. Darcy was screeching "Don't go in the street!" and some of the kids were making a game of walking along the curb, periodically dangling a foot over the side. Fortunately, there were plenty of cars parked along this side of the street; if anyone did fall, the worst that would happen would be a scraped knee or a bumped nose.

"Yeah, we'll catch up," Bruce sighed.

He liked Darcy—she'd never met the Other Guy, so she wasn't afraid of Bruce—but she wasn't exactly cut out to be responsible for children. The kids liked her, sure, and she was helpful on the occasions that she visited Science Club, but she was easily distracted. Take, for example, this very moment: while Darcy made mock-threats in the direction of the kids who were walking on the curb, ahead, a trio of unsavory-looking adults had gathered on the sidewalk and was casting glances in their direction. They were wearing ill-fitting hoodies and jeans, and their faces were covered with green goblin-like masks; there wasn't a kid in sight around them. Trouble: and Darcy, oblivious, was walking the kids right into them.

Zain jabbed his finger again, the candy in his bucket rattling, and Bruce realized the boy hadn't lowered his hand. He also realized the boy wasn't pointing at the other kids—he was pointing at the three people in hoodies, who had all taken their masks off in the fraction of the second that Bruce had looked away from them. Or rather, the two men and the woman; Bruce looked closer, examining their faces, and felt a chill run through him.

Just ahead of Darcy and less than half a block from the hoodie-clad trio, an alley crossed their path. "Darcy," Bruce said, raising his voice but keeping his tone calm. "Turn left here."

Darcy half-turned and kept walking. "What?"

"Darcy, go left, please," he repeated, and fought the urge to glance back. He was making them conspicuous enough by shouting; he didn't want to tip off the people in the hoodies to the presence of Thor, Loki, and Jane behind him. _People,_ he thought, and felt a moment's bubbling hysteria. _Stay calm. The kids need you to stay calm._

The Other Guy sensed his panic and bumped against the inside of his skin like a shark nudging a diver's cage. Bruce took a deep breath. _Not now,_ he thought, and was half relieved and half annoyed when Darcy stopped dead on the sidewalk and spread her arms, bringing the kids to a churning halt around them.

"Hold up, kiddos. I thought we were going another block," Darcy said to Bruce as he and Zain walked closer.

"The plan's changed, and I need you not to argue with me, Darcy," he said, doing a fast visual headcount. All the kids were here, but some of them were starting to droop; too many for him and Darcy to carry. "We're going to cut down this alley and go back down the other side of the block. Once we get to the next street over, you're going to call Jane, and—"

Darcy held up a finger. "I have Jane's cell phone, so, not gonna call her. It didn't fit in her Black Widow pouches," she finished, shrugging.

Swearing in front of the kids would have been inappropriate, and swearing in his head attracted the Other Guy's attention, so Bruce didn't, despite his very strong desire to release some choice diction. But the trio in the hoodies had started walking in their direction, so he just shook his head and began moving, trying his hardest to keep himself to a kid-friendly, calm stroll.

Darcy fell in beside him and lowered her voice. "What's the deal, Doc?"

"Those guys ahead of us are trouble," he said, flicking his eyes in their direction. Darcy glanced at them, then put a hand on her belt.

"I brought my Taser—" she said, her voice even lower, and he cut her off.

" _No_. These kids don't need to be part of any kind of violence. We're going to get out of the way and let Thor and Loki handle it." He glanced at her. "You wouldn't happen to have their cell phone numbers . . . ?"

"Yeah, no, pretty sure Asgard doesn't do cell phones, because if they did, Jane would have murdered Thor before now for not calling when he was off on Asgard," Darcy said, and glanced sideways as they turned into the alley. He saw her throat move as she swallowed, then looked at him. "Look, you lead the way, you know where you wanna go. I'll take the back and make sure no one gets left behind."

Her pulse was pounding in her throat, her hands already trembling with adrenaline. Her fear drew the Other Guy's interest—if there was something to be afraid of, he wanted to be involved. Bruce took a deep breath.

"Darcy, if something goes wrong, I want you to grab the nearest kid and run. Get to an apartment and get inside and tell them to lock the door, alright?"

Her eyes widened. He didn't know what she'd seen when she saw the people in hoodies, but it wasn't what he'd seen, and his instructions startled her. But she nodded, smiled tightly, and moved away from him.

"Let's go, people! We got candy to secure. Move your butts!" she said, with a theatrical wave of her hands, and to her credit, her voice was exactly as steady and light as it had been before.

The alley was inconsistently lit by the glow of high windows and a single sodium light mounted on the eave of a roof. Bruce glanced down at Zain. The boy turned his green, grimacing Hulk-face toward him. Clever brown eyes regarded him calmly from behind the mask.

There was a very good chance that Zain had seen the same thing Bruce had seen, and still, he looked up at Bruce with that confidence in his eyes, wearing the face of the part of himself that Bruce most hated. Bruce's heart skipped a beat. He couldn't betray that trust; not by letting those things from the street hurt his kids, and not by letting the Other Guy win. He gave Zain's hand a squeeze, and the boy turned back, as if satisfied that some hypothesis of his had been confirmed. Bruce took a deep breath.

He wouldn't let anyone hurt his kids. Not even him.

 

Darcy:

So, it wasn't exactly true that the Asgardians didn't have cell phones. Or rather, it _was_ true that they didn't have cell phones, but it _wasn't_ true that Darcy couldn't call them. She unslung her quiver as she walked and fumbled out her phone, wishing like hell that she could turn around and look at the creepos following them.

She wasn't exactly sure what had set Bruce off about them, but she was more than willing to trust the big guy's instincts. He'd basically spent the last couple years of his life becoming an expert on avoiding trouble, so she figured he knew what was up. Plus, they were pinging her weirdo radar, too—anyone who was just hanging out on a residential street on Halloween, without kids, not going anywhere, was more-likely-than-usual to be trouble.

She powered up her phone, poked Loki's number, and held it to her ear. She was reasonably certain that Loki, at least, didn't have a cell phone, for two reasons: first, because she'd never seen him with one; and second, because Loki's number—the number that showed up on her Caller ID when he called; the number that reached him when she dialed it—was 69.

Just 69.

To be honest, she thought it was pretty hilarious.

"Darcy? Where are you?"

"Walking down a super creepy alley to get away from the hoodie people," Darcy answered, and looked toward the end of the alley. She couldn't see a street sign. "We were like a block ahead of you guys."

"Darcy, you must get to a place of safety as soon as you can. There are creatures about; creatures which can masquerade as human, but wish only to conquer humanity and rule it with unflinching cruelty."

"Republicans?" she said, unable to resist.

"I do not know the race of which you speak; I mean the _Skrulls_ ," Loki replied, sounding annoyed. "We've gained an ally, but you must get yourself and the children to safety."

"Workin' on it," Darcy muttered, and finally gave in to the urge to look behind her.

And of course, the hoodie people were following them.

"Fuck," she said under her breath.

"Darcy?"

"Some creepos are following us," she said. "We're gonna circle around the block. You find your skull-people, then get your cute little butt over to us."

" _Skrulls_ ," Loki repeated, but Darcy wasn't paying attention; she was looking over her shoulder again. She knew she shouldn't—she was going to trip over something, for sure—but there was something weird about the faces under those hoodies, and it was bugging her. When she looked back, though, the strangers were walking in a patch of shadow, and she couldn't see them clearly.

"Hey, look, I'm sorry I dragged you into this," she said, turning back to her phone and softening her voice. "I thought this just gonna be babysitting duty and then we'd get out of here—"

"This is not your doing, Darcy Lewis," Loki said, his voice softening. "Now hang up the phone, watch where you're walking, and stay alive."

"Love you too," she said, then hung up the phone and nearly froze in her tracks.

 _Love you too?_ What the _fuck_ , Lewis?

She walked a few steps without breathing, poleaxed by the idiocy that had just come out of her mouth. Like—in the two months since Jane and Thor had gotten back together, and she and Loki had sort of kind of started dating in self-defense, the L word had not been anywhere in her thoughts. Fun. Silliness. Massively adolescent pranks with the original prankster. _That_ was what they were about—Darcy getting to drag Loki to all her favorite places and make him watch all her favorite things and eat all her favorite junk food, and no matter how dumb or uncultured or childish it was, being able to say, "Well, you _have_ to know about this" because it was Earth, right, and not everyone on the planet was as smart and awesome as Jane, so obviously if Loki wanted to really know what Earth was like, he had to know how dumb they could be, too. He had to know how dumb _she_ could be.

Except that, for someone who was apparently super old and really cultured and should _totally_ know better, Loki liked a lot of the stuff she liked. Bacon. Old Saturday Night Live episodes. Gilmore Girls. Toenail polish. (Though he was pretty insistent on green, always. She was trying to nudge him toward blue, but it was a slow process.) Go-karts. Claw machines. Cuddling.

He was really, really good at cuddling. And backrubs. And being willing to kiss the _fuck_ out of her and still back off when she said that was enough. Like.

Shit, she was kinda sorta a little in love with him.

"Lewis, you dope," she muttered, and was _seriously_ tempted to chuck her phone in frustration. She hadn't realized it until now, which made that stupid "love you too" even worse, because now she wouldn't even be able to laugh it off with a straight face.

Of course she only had relationship crises in the middle of life-threatening events.

 _Potentially_ life-threatening events, she reminded herself, and glanced over her shoulder. The hoodie gang was still following them, and this time, when she looked back, they were standing under the single light.

And that's when she realized what was off about their faces.

 _Motherfucking pod people!_ she almost yelped.

Because while two of them had unfamiliar faces, the third looked _exactly_ like her.

 _Shitballs_.

Wait. Wait one frick-frack snick-snackin' second.

 _Creatures which can masquerade as human_.

She'd found Loki's aliens.

They were following her.

Fucking.

_Balls._

She thought fast. Ahead of her, Bruce was leading kids out of the alley, onto the street—which was full of other trick-or-treaters. Behind her, she had shapeshifting aliens, and possibly further behind that, she had Loki, Thor, and Jane.

Darcy Lewis was not a superhero. Not even close—she didn't have the cool car, the sweet outfits, or the friggin' awesome tech. What she _did_ have was a deadly-accurate sense of snark, a borrowed bow, her trusty Taser, and four hours' worth of _How to respond when some crazy-ass motherfucker tries to shoot up your school_ training.

And the first rule of that training? _Don't give them targets._

Targets like a street full of kids and oblivious parents.

 _You're a moron, Lewis_ , she told herself as she unslung her bow, pulled an arrow out of her quiver, fitted the nock to the string the way her friend Kate had showed her, and spun around.

"Stop right there, creepfaces," she yelled in her best don't-fuck-with-me voice. "My name's Hawkeye, and if you take one more step, I'm gonna put arrows through your eyes."

To Darcy's utter astonishment, the three hoodie-wearing weirdos stopped dead in their tracks. Maybe they're just kids, she thought for roughly three seconds before the one on the right turned to the one in the middle—the one wearing her face—and said something in a hissing, clicking language that was definitely not human.

Panic electrified her veins. "Aw, crud," she muttered as the alien wearing her face replied to the one that had talked, then all of them stared at her. Their faces were weirdly expressionless, as if they hadn't gotten the hang of using them yet, but Darcy had the distinct impression that they didn't like her.

Go figure.

"I'm warning you, I can shoot the balls off a horsefly," she yelled as her arms began to shake from the strain of keeping the bow drawn. "I'm the greatest marksman of all time and—"

A flash of light and a drawled "Easy, kid," interrupted her—from over her head. Darcy looked up and her mouth fell open. A blonde woman in a bitchin' red-and-blue jumpsuit floated down out of the sky like something from a music video, landing next to Darcy.

"Holy mother of Bowie," she breathed. "Who are you?"

"Colonel Carol Danvers, US Air Force," Darcy's new favorite person said, and turned a glare on the hoodie freaks. "But those jokers probably know me as Captain Marvel."

The hoodie pack had frozen when Captain Marvel brought her portable lightshow into the alley; now they let out a chorus of terrified squeaks and spun, almost in unison, to run away. They managed less than half a dozen steps before skidding to a halt at the sight of Captain America, Thor, and Black Widow barring the opposite end of the alley.

"Halt! In the name of truth, justice, and the American way!" Captain America shouted, his shield braced before him.

The hoodie freaks turned, panicked, but by then, Iron Man had joined Captain Marvel on Darcy's other side.

"You can't run, and you can't hide," he said. "Drop any weapons you're carrying, or you are _seriously_ going to regret visiting this planet."

Instead of obeying, the three shapechangers—who had drawn closer together when they realized they couldn't get away—straightened, and a look of something like relief crossed their faces.

"Tony Stark!" one of them said in weirdly-accented but still-understandable English. "Thank Kly'bn and Sl'gurt! We have been looking for you!"

"Show us your hands," Captain Marvel ordered. The one who'd spoken glanced at the others, then slowly lifted its empty hands to the level of its chest, palm-outwards; its companions followed suit cautiously a moment later.

"We have been looking for you, Tony Stark," the one who'd spoken repeated, sounding hopeful. "We humbly seek your aid—"

Bruce pulled the printed fabric of the costume's mask off his face and blinked at the hoodies, then looked at Captain Marvel.

"Is this costume seriously that good, or are they—"

Captain Marvel had folded her arms and raised her eyebrows. "They're dumb. Dumber than the usual Skrull." She narrowed her eyes. "Hey. Elf ears. Drop the people-masks. We're not buying it."

The trio in the middle of the alley looked at each other anxiously. After a second, the one with Darcy's face took a deep breath, then pushed back its hood and _transformed._

Green skin. Prominent brow ridges. A wide-nostriled, squashed-flat nose. Some seriously weird vertical chin wrinkles. No hair. And yeah, elf ears.

"I see why you were trying to look like me," Darcy muttered as the other two aliens looked nervously from their companion to Captain Marvel and back, then pushed back their hoods and followed green-skinned suit. Oddly enough, it wasn't only their faces that changed; all three seemed to get skinnier and marginally shorter, their clothes turning loose.

Maybe it was the getting-smaller part, or maybe it was their weird green faces, but the end result was that all three looked younger—like teenagers, not adults.

Darcy eased back on her draw (because _ow_ , how the heck did Hawkeye run around doing that all the time, it was _hard_ ) and glanced over at Captain Marvel. The other woman had gone from looking moderately suspicious of the Skrulls to slightly disbelieving and _very_ annoyed.

"Are you shitting me?"

The Skrull stopped looking like they were about to wet their collective pants and started looking a hell of a lot like Jane when Darcy caught her doing science in the NO SCIENCE, FOOD ONLY, THIS MEANS YOU TONY-labeled microwave at Stark Tower. One of them dropped its hands and another hesitantly lowered its hands halfway, but Captain Marvel didn't flinch.

"Our ship broke," the one who'd been speaking before said in a very small voice. "We saw the broadcasts about Tony Stark—"

On the other end of the alley, Black Widow let out a loud groan. "Oh my god, they saw the MTV interview," Jane said, propping her hands on her hips. "Tony's going to be _insufferable_ now."

As if his name had summoned him, there was a roar of jets overhead and a pair of mechanized suits—one red and gold, one red and blue—hovered over the roofline momentarily before descending to the alley, followed by three rapt sets of Skrull eyes.

"What's this about me becoming insufferable?" Tony's flattened-and-amplified voice came from his suit speakers. His faceplate flipped up, and he arched a brow. "I thought I was already insufferable, Dr. Foster. Nice costume, Bruce."

The faceplate on the blue-and-red suit flipped up. "You are," James Rhodes said, then looked over at Captain Marvel. "How's it going, Cheeseburger?"

"I am going to peel you out of that suit and fold you into a pretzel," Captain Marvel said, a slow grin creeping across her face. Rhodey grinned back.

"Sounds like fun."

"Guys, can we keep it kid-friendly?" Darcy said, deadpan, then glared at Tony. "Speaking of which, where's _your_ half of Science Club?"

"Happy's got them in the limo, they've got a wet bar, they're totally fine," Tony said, then looked at the Skrulls, who were beginning to look moderately confused. "Great costumes, guys. Who are these chuckleheads, and why are you calling this woman Cheeseburger?" Tony said, directing the end of his question at Rhodey.

"Tony Stark, Colonel Carol Danvers, US Air Force, retired," Rhodey said.

"Chair force, huh?" Tony said, then turned to the Skrulls. "What's this, Junior ROTC?" He took a whirring step forward, tilting his head. "Seriously, guys, _fabulous_ work on the makeup, but you couldn't have come up with something more creative than matching hoodies? Youth of today—"

"They're Skrulls, Stark," Captain Marvel interrupted. "Aliens. And apparently they're here for you." She folded her arms. "Something about an MTV interview?"

As if her words were a cue, the three Skrull dropped to their knees.

"Please," one of them said. "We need your help. Our ship suffered a malfunction and we were forced to land on this planet. The broadcasts from your planet say that you are the greatest engineer of your kind; without your aid, we'll never return home."

Tony visibly puffed up as the Skrull spoke, undeterred by Rhodey and Jane's groaning. Before he could speak, though, Captain Marvel did.

"And what exactly were you doing when your ship suffered this 'malfunction'? This system is restricted territory, and you three know that."

The Skrulls shuffled their feet and looked at each other guiltily before one answered, in low, accented English, "We were . . . just in the neighborhood."

Darcy could almost feel the heat off Captain Marvel's glare. The Skrulls shuffled some more, then a different one blurted, "The signals are much better inside the asteroid belt."

The other two immediately glared at the one who'd spoken, while Captain Marvel's eyebrow inched skyward. "The _signals?_ "

"For the sound and video broadcasts," the one who'd spoken said, glaring right back at the other two before raising its chin stubbornly and facing Captain Marvel. "They're clearer close to the planet."

Teenagers. Sound and video. Darcy snorted loudly as it all clicked.

"Oh my god, you're Skrull hipsters," she said. She let the bow drop to her side as the others looked from her to the aliens. "'Oh, this song? It's by an _Earth band,_ you've probably never heard of it,'" she said in her best obnoxious-hipster voice, then added, "Okay, I have to know, what's the Skrull equivalent of PBR?"

The Skrulls, Loki, and Thor looked confused, but understanding dawned on the faces of the humans. Rhodey started laughing, followed by Darcy and Jane. The Skrulls looked terrified.

Tony took a whirring step forward and offered the nearest Skrull a hand. "Ignore these philistines," he said. "Greatest engineer of my kind, huh? Let's take a look at this ship of yours and find out."

The Skrull rose tentatively, a star-struck look in its eyes. The other two followed suit, edging close together and avoiding Captain Marvel's disapproving glare. After a few minutes of discussion while Thor, Loki, and Jane crossed the alley to join them, it was decided that the three flight-enabled humans would carry the Skrulls back to their ship, which was parked a few miles outside of the city.

"Dim sum after?" Tony asked hopefully, looking around the group to ensure that everyone knew they were invited. Rhodey and Captain Marvel locked gazes.

"Drink?" Rhodey said.

"Ginger ale?" Captain Marvel countered, and Rhodey nodded.

"I know a place," he said, then looked at Tony. "Sorry. Cheeseburger and I have a couple things to catch up on."

"Like you calling me Cheeseburger," Captain Marvel growled, smiling, then looked at the group. "Nice meeting you all."

"Jane, Bruce, can you handle getting the kids home?" Rhodey asked. Bruce nodded; Jane frowned.

"Where _are_ the kids?" she asked, looking toward the mouth of the alley.

"Pinkberry," Bruce said. "I gave one of the employees a hundred bucks and Tony's black card and told her to give them whatever they want as long as they don't leave."

Jane's eyes widened slowly. Bruce shrugged apologetically. "It was the best I could do on short notice."

"Their poor parents tonight," Darcy muttered, then shuddered.

"Alright, we're gonna help ET phone home," Tony said, and snapped his faceplate shut. "Later, losers."

He swung an arm around the nearest Skrull and lifted off, followed in quick succession by Rhodey and Captain Marvel. As Bruce, Jane, and Thor watched them go, Loki slid to Darcy's side and slipped his hand into hers.

"Are you all right?" he asked, voice low. Darcy looked up at him, swallowed, and squeezed his hand. She tried to smile and reply with something flippant, but the words caught in her throat. Loki saw, and bent low.

"You were brave," he said, and kissed the top of her head before pulling back slightly. "And I think this wig came from the same place as Banner's suit."

Darcy let out a short laugh, then leaned into Loki, who wrapped an arm across her shoulders. The thin, cheap Captain America costume made a silky-smooth covering for Loki's abs. Mm, abs.

"Are you all right, friend Darcy?" Thor rumbled.

Darcy took a breath and separated herself from Loki, though she kept hold of his hand. "Yeah," she said. "I think I'm ready to go home, though."

Jane gave her a fondly chiding look and hugged her. "You are _crazy_ ," she said, holding her tightly before releasing her. "Bruce and Thor and I can get the kids home with Happy—"

"I can help," Darcy protested.

"—and you and Loki can go home," Jane finished, then gave Darcy a stern look. "Do you _really_ want to get dim sum with Tony? Or do you want to do what you said this afternoon?"

Darcy slowly turned toward Loki. "Hocus Pocus on the couch with spiked cider?" she said tentatively. He gave her a lopsided smile.

"If it is with you, it would be my pleasure," he said.

Darcy might have gone embarrassingly gooey inside after that.

 

Thor:

After the children had been collected from the sweet shop, sticky-fingered and manic, and reunited with their parents; after Darcy had called to report that she and Loki were home safely, warm under blankets on the couch; after Tony reported, triumphantly, that the Skrull children had all his interviews, and that he would be able to fix their ship; after all that, Thor and Jane walked the paths of Central Park.

The temperature had dropped, and Jane was wrapped in Thor's cape. Her cheeks were pink with the cold, her eyes bright. She leaned into him with every other step, each unthinking brush of her shoulder a precious gift.

"I love the smell of falling leaves," she said. "It wasn't like this in New Mexico." She turned her face up. "What do you think of Halloween?"

Her mood was light; she would have accepted a simple statement of like or dislike. Thor thought about what he had seen this night.

"I think Midgard possesses more magic than it knows," he said.

Jane smiled and leaned more of her weight on him.

"I think you're right."

They stopped where the trees parted to reveal the sky, and looked up, searching out the stars amid the glow of New York's humanity.

"Hope the Skrull kids get home okay," Jane said thoughtfully.

"As do I," Thor agreed. Jane looked at him, an odd smile on her face.

"Funny, all you aliens ending up here on Earth," she said.

He looked down at her. "You cast a bright light," he said, voice soft. "It's hard to stay away."

Jane caught her breath. "Are you talking about humans?" she said, trying to keep her voice teasing. "Or me?"

Thor bent and kissed her for an answer.

When they broke apart, both a little breathless, Thor smiled.

"Happy Halloween, Jane Foster. May we share many more."

Jane twined her arms around his neck. "To many more," she repeated, and kissed him.

And the stars glowed on.

 


End file.
